Liquor is Quicker
by grumkinsnark
Summary: Show me a hero and I'll write you a tragedy.


**Liquor is Quicker**

* * *

**Tequila - Impulsive. Strikes quick.**

He'd been training his whole life for this. He walks up on the stage and smiles to the crowd, ecstatic that finally this year, his last of eligibility, he has been chosen to be a tribute. His sister kisses him on the cheek, looking forward to her own Reaping; his mother and father pat him on the head, proud. He begins his authorized training a few days later in the Capitol, and drinks it all in. The glamor, the weapons, the skill, the sponsors. He has a good feeling about these Games. There are a few tributes he needs to keep an eye on, but no one really worth his time. This year is _his_.

It is, and the hovercraft comes to collect him after his last competitor is dead, and he grins again even though there is viscous blood on his face—not his—his arm hangs broken at his side, and his dagger is dulled from the slaughters.

His district touts him a hero, and he accepts.

—

It takes a week for them to begin, the nightmares, but when they do hardly a day goes by where he doesn't wake up screaming. Seven kills officially attributed to him, and another ten he saw with his own eyes. Young girls, boys his age, everyone in between. Deaths of all kinds. His nightmares aren't always the same. Sometimes Five spears him through the gut, sometimes Eight hacks off his limbs with a mace, sometimes Twelve beats his head in with a chunk of black rock. Sometimes the Gamemakers pin him underneath a fallen tree and leave him to die. But every time, he can feel every bashing, ever slice, right until the very end. The only thing that stays the same is his excruciating death.

He's ashamed, when he wakes in a cold sweat with tears fresh on his face, for he knows he should be stronger than this. It doesn't work. One day he looks in the mirror and the gray eyes that stare back at him are as empty as all those he'd killed.

He's not a hero, but he lives.

* * *

**Curaçao - Artificial.**

It's a rare happenstance indeed when two members of the same family get Reaped in consecutive years, even in a Career district. She's just glad it's her family. She'll get another chance to bring glory, to show everyone they're the elite. Her trainer thinks she should cut her hair, that it would get in the way, but she laughs it off; it can be her trademark. She'll rain vengeance upon all the other tributes with her locks flowing like liquid gold. She practices her knife throwing and it's perfect as always, hitting each target with precision.

She's more resourceful than most of the other tributes, certainly more than the other Careers, having actually paid attention to what plants are poisonous and which ones aren't, how to identify traps and how to set them. She ensnares the girl from Six and watches as the live branches strangle her. All but one of the other Careers get killed during an ambush—Eleven and their allies are quite bold this year—leaving just her and the male from One. He tries to force himself upon her one night and she slices him groin to chest.

Hers is a crown fit for a hero.

—

_Do you understand what I'm saying, my dear? Good. I'm glad we didn't have to make this…difficult._

The green-haired sponsor pounds into her relentlessly, the handcuffs chaining her to the bed digging into her wrists, drawing blood. She tries not to cry out, but she's sixteen and this is her first time and it hurts. The man tugs at her hair, her beautiful hair, and she wishes she'd listened to her trainer. He bites at her neck, leaving a mark that her prep team will render invisible not half a day from now. He spills into her and she barely restrains herself from gagging as she feels the man's stickiness drip down her bruised legs. Somehow, she ekes out a smile for him.

_Just so you know_, he purrs, _I really splurged for next time. I've never had a brother and sister at once before, but it'll be a great experiment I think._

She's allowed to leave a few minutes later and stumbles back to her room. There's not much in her stomach except the alcohol she'd downed to try and numb the pain (it didn't), but she empties it and then dry heaves until there's nothing left. She curls up in the scalding shower and thinks of her crown, and wants nothing more than to crush it to dust.

She's not a hero, but she lives.

* * *

**Whiskey - Slow burn.**

The boy with the voice that's only just broken blesses every screen of Panem, with gleaming bronze hair that falls into his face just-so and brilliant sea green eyes by which citizens young and old are enraptured. A wicked smile charms the country and lithe muscles tease the promise of a desirous body. His beauty seems enhanced when dirtied by sweat and blood and dirt as he races through the arena, those muscles pierced by venomous vines. But he conquers, as Panem knew he would, and he weaves them into a net and an hour later a trident of glittering gold falls from the sky. He grins that wicked smile and soon the gold drips red.

He comes back tired but victorious, and he thinks he must be the youngest hero who ever lived.

—

It's the District 1 male who's last to be killed in Finnick Odair's Games, and for a while, Cashmere and Gloss are angry, as good mentors should be. They'd had faith in their tributes this year, but no one could have quite anticipated the youth's skill and ingenuity. That anger doesn't last past Caesar's closing interview.

"Now, Finnick, I must ask: is there a lucky girl back home? I think I speak for all the ladies here when I say I hope there isn't, because we could just eat you up!"

Finnick gives some noncommittal reply accompanied by a secretive, oblivious smile. "He has no idea," Cashmere whispers.

"Poor kid," agrees Gloss next to her. "Snow won't even wait until he's of age."

"We have to do something," says Cashmere. She knows there's a possibility cameras are on her face right now, that she should always be the patronizing, self-centered Career, but right now she feels herself unraveling. Surely this sort of thing, this _whoring_ has happened before, but the beautiful boy on display reminds her so much of Gloss. "We can't just—"

"He'd kill our family, you know that, Cash."

Cashmere stares at the floor. She's been raised to hate competitors, to look out for only herself, and yet seeing this…this _child_ sitting unawares, it makes her want to shriek and wail. "I hate this."

Gloss doesn't object. He feels eyes on him and glances over to see Haymitch Abernathy, Twelve's only victor and the most jaded man she's ever met, who bitterly toasts them both with a flask. "We all do," Gloss replies.

The next year, Finnick is so distracted that even with Mags and District 3's victors helping him out of pity, Four's tributes die before they even reach the Cornucopia. Finnick puts on a nearly flawless veneer afterwards, pretending to shrug off the deaths, but Cashmere and Gloss recognize it well. The green eyes that glittered with mirth and confidence in his Games are stormy and flat, now. He looks at them accusingly—_you knew. You knew and you didn't warn me_—except they have their victors to worry about. Though not for long: the boy gets a knife through the back by one of their allies, and the girl gets strangled with another's bare hands in the same fight.

All the victors whose tributes are eliminated go to Haymitch's quarters that night, because he has the most alcohol. Finnick out-drinks them all, even Haymitch, bypassing the beer and wine in favor of going straight for spirits. The four of them bond in their shared resentment, until Finnick's cell phone rings. He looks at the number, and all the blood drains from his face. His voice is deceptively calm as he answers, nodding and saying all the right things, but when he hangs up, his hands are shaking so badly Cashmere wonders if he's about to seize. He tries to take a few breaths, only to end up hyperventilating. She's fairly certain this isn't Finnick's first client, but it doesn't matter. It never gets easier.

Gloss grabs his hands tight enough that both sets turn white. Cashmere realizes for perhaps the first time that Gloss sees in Finnick just what she had, that he has just as much sorrow for the boy. "Hang in there, kid."

Cashmere thinks she hears Finnick ask, "How?" under his breath, but she can't be sure. Haymitch reaches into some pocket of his stained jacket and withdraws a small vial, thrusting it into Finnick's lap. "Drink it," is all he says.

Finnick does so without hesitation, waits a moment, and then schools his face into perfection. He stands on steady legs, shrugs off his coat, undoes three buttons on his shirt, and strides out of the room without so much as a goodbye.

"What was that?" Gloss asks.

"You don't want to know," says Haymitch. "But it'll help, trust me."

Cashmere doubts it—she'd taken her fair share of aids, and while some have dulled her senses, they've never suppressed the memories—but at least it's something. Next year Finnick is of age, and every day his tributes survive, he fades a little more, and Cashmere doesn't know how long he'll last.

Longer than she, it turns out, but not by much.

—

Sharp teeth tear at his legs, at his arms, at his neck, at his face, at his eyes, and a howl erupts unbidden from his throat. They tear at that, too. Blood spurts into his vision that blackens at the edges. The rest of his crew stands at the top, having evaded the mutts when he couldn't, and someone yells his name—_Katniss? Katniss, help me, please_—but doesn't come down. It's just as well, he wouldn't have either. (That's a lie. Or at least he hopes it is.) He's not sure if it's the explosion or the teeth that kill him, only that the last thing he sees is a woman in green silk, laughing adrift the crystal clear ocean.

He is a hero, and he dies a martyr.

* * *

**Absinthe - Psychoactive.**

She's a nobody from District 7, the daughter of a woodcutter just like hundreds of others. Yet she's chosen anyway—"Johanna Mason, come up here, child"—and ascends the platform stiffly, steeling herself and trying to ignore her six-year-old brother's cry. She's never been one to dwell on setbacks, and this is just like any other. The boy that's picked is wiry and pale, and she has no doubt he'll be one of the first to die. She decides she doesn't want to know his name.

It's not her mentor's advice that tells her how to win, it's Caesar Flickerman. He treats her as though she's a delicate flower, not a girl who'd learned how to wield an axe practically before she could walk, and the audience falls right into line. Her mentor advises her to go straight for the Cornucopia; she's quick, nimble, he tells her. She'd have a good chance of getting there. But she's not inclined to do that either.

Instead, she takes to the arena itself, getting her bearings and coming up with a plan. She feigns hunger and fatigue and when the Career pack comes, when they arrogantly split up to try and corner her, she leads one into a rudimentary trap, steals his axe, and leaves him. She vanishes easily enough, waits until most of the tributes have slaughtered each other, and then shows no mercy on the rest.

Her weapon is drenched with blood when the hovercraft arrives, and she knows no one will ever underestimate her again.

—

_I don't care what you do, I won't be part of your sick game, Snow. Fuck you, and fuck the rest of this goddamn hellhole._

Her own words haunt her as she stares at the wreckage of her parents' house, stone burnt black and melted metal twisted. A gas leak, that's what the neighbors tell her. A gas leak and a candle accidentally left aflame, erupting in the middle of the night, conflagration engulfing the entire house in a matter of seconds. A tragic accident, they say. Johanna knows better. She allows herself one night to cry, her hatred for Snow and everything he stands for increasing with every tear. She considers ending it all, taking a blade to her own head, but thinks better of it. Snow has killed everyone she loves; he can't hurt her anymore, not really.

That makes her dangerous.

She doesn't let Snow break her in her Games, she doesn't let him break her in the Quell, she doesn't let him break her even when she's tortured day in and day out, she doesn't let him break her despite nightmares forcing her to wake screaming, throat raw and bleeding. Perhaps this is why she clings so tightly—if caustically—to Katniss. If such a girl can survive friends' deaths, her sister's death, well, maybe Johanna sees a little of herself in the Mockingjay.

She's heroic, but doesn't want to be.

* * *

**Vodka - Resilient.**

_The Hunger Games officially ended after the siege of the Capitol, which resulted in the deaths of District 13's [see Appendix I] Alma Coin and the long-reigning Panem President, Coriolanus Snow. The identity of Snow's killer is still unknown, but Coin's unplanned assassination was carried out by Katniss Everdeen._

The girl with long blonde hair reads the last informative passage of her history textbook, duly ignoring the furtive stares of her classmates. Her name is Mellark, but he's mentioned nearly as much as her mother.

(_Following the disastrous 75th Hunger Games, Peeta Mellark was "hijacked" [see Appendix IV] and tortured by the Capitol along with fellow victors Johanna Mason and Annie Odair—)_

Primrose never has read the remainder of that paragraph, knowing it contains details of her father's torture. Her teacher had asked them all to analyze the final days of the old Panem, but she'd refused. Once, she was morbidly curious about her parents' past, going so far as to berate them about it all, yet they'd danced around the grisly reality, and now she's glad they had. She knows they put on a front, but selfishly, she likes that better than Aunt Johanna—haunted and vengeful, and not caring who sees.

She knows her brother, who is even more curious a child than she is, will want to ask them, and so she takes it upon herself to curb those questions. She keeps meaning to write to her grandmother for suggestions; after all, it had been she who stopped cousin Tristan from interrogating his mother. Part of her parents' secrecy has regarded Annie, about whom Primrose has heard there's something…not right. Mainly through eavesdropping. Johanna's voice tends to carry.

_How is she?_

_Better. Having the baby to care for is doing her well. At least that's what Mom says._

_Well, thank God she's not a nut job anymore. Still don't know how Finnick dealt with it._

_Johanna! You don't mean that. Just…don't. Please._

To this day, she doesn't know if her mother ever heard her darting off; she's never said anything one way or the other. From then on, Primrose had tried to imagine Annie as, to quote Johanna, a nut job. She'd only visited District 4 a few times, but the woman had always been so friendly. Reserved, maybe, and with that same far-off look her mother got sometimes, but never _crazy_. If anything, all her ice cream giving and knot tying expertise made her the opposite. Certainly Tristan has enough energy and charm for the both of them.

Primrose sighs. Maybe when she's older she'd get all the answers. She's pretty sure Johanna would tell her if she asked, but that might get both of them in trouble. One day.

For now, she closes her history book and jogs home after the final bell, debating whether she should excuse herself from the prompt her teacher gave them all to discuss.

_Draw upon your readings of the Hunger Games victors in the final days of Old Panem. Given the laws set down, were they in the right? Explain why or why not._

When she reaches her house, all is quiet—which is strange, since there's always _some_ kind of noise, whether it's pots and pans banging around as her father tries to find the right one, or the _shink-swish_ of her mother letting arrows fly from practiced fingers. She wanders upstairs and peeks into her parents' bedroom. Both of them sit on the bed, staring at an old photograph, which she can make out as that of Katniss and the Aunt Prim she'd never gotten to meet. She's seen it before, but not like this. Not with her parents' unguarded expressions of sadness as they reminisce on yet another thing that President Snow helped destroy.

Primrose has a feeling they noticed her presence, but she backs away silently anyway, tiptoeing into her room.

_Draw upon your readings of the Hunger Games victors in the final days of Old Panem. Given the laws set down, were they in the right? Explain why or why not._

She rips up the assignment sheet and tosses it in the trashcan. A one to two page double-spaced essay could never encapsulate what she knows. Everyone has experienced the aftermath of Old Panem to some degree, but few see what Primrose does on a daily basis. Her parents valiantly try to make their smiles reach their eyes, their laughter reflect warmth and beauty, yet never quite succeed. There's always something ugly and dark lurking beneath the surface that she knows won't ever really leave.

Her parents are heroes, in every sense of the word, but they didn't want to be, and have suffered the consequences. Turns out being heroic really only benefits the masses; the heroes themselves have a lifetime of burdens and horrors to hide and nightmares to evade.

Primrose knows her teacher expects some flowery words and uninspired _if…then…because_ statements, not the truth. The truth is bloody and awful, and though she can't do much to help her parents, she _can_ do this, can perpetuate their infamous deeds by declining to write what she sees every time she wakes up and every time she goes to bed.

She learned a long time ago there's no real such thing as a hero. What there is, is flawed, broken people molded into a facsimile of greatness and thrust into a crucible, and when they finish their tasks, they're chopped up and spit out, and maybe, _just maybe_, they can tape themselves back together enough to function.


End file.
